Rating: 
Summary: Giving Up America
Review: I looked forward to Pearl Abraham's second book, yet it was a slow boring read. I did not finish the book. From the start, you realized it was all predictable. There was no real emotion expressed and you could not feel anything for the characters. The subject is such a facsinating one, dealing with so many issues: marriage & divorce, affairs, love, religion and upbringing. This could have been explored in such a rich and heartfelt manner.
Rating:
Summary: Giving Up America
Review: I looked forward to Pearl Abraham's second book, yet it was a slow boring read. I did not finish the book. From the start, you realized it was all predictable. There was no real emotion expressed and you could not feel anything for the characters. The subject is such a facsinating one, dealing with so many issues: marriage & divorce, affairs, love, religion and upbringing. This could have been explored in such a rich and heartfelt manner.
Rating: 
Summary: Another excellent book by a gifted writer
Review: I loved the Romance Reader and Pearl Abraham tops that book with her latest novel. Easy to read from beginning to end and just the right length. Her style is wonderful. I am surprised by some of the criticism posted here. The characters are very well developed and original. O f all the writers I have read in the last couple of years that explore these kinds of themes, Ms. Abraham is the best.
Rating:
Summary: Worst book I've read in 5 years!
Review: I really *wanted* to like this book, but it was, without a doubt, the worst thing I've read in years. I trudged through it, hoping something would finally happen and take shape...like a story, like character development, like a finding a reason the author wrote the thing in the first place.The characters were flat and dull, the 'affair' was passionless, the Jewish aspects were pointless (and could have been fascinating), the story uninvolving and boring. The main driving emotions here were Pouting and Whining. The writing was very "clipped", as if Abraham read a few Hemingway novels and thought, "Hey, I could do this, too." And she teaches Writing at NYU? Scary. Very disappointing book with a lot of missed opportunities.
Rating:
Summary: Husband leaves wife for younger, thinner model.So what's new
Review: Jill, Daniel's secretary, is younger, thinner and even wears red lipstick on ski trips. She also auditions for acting jobs on the side, therefore, she is full of life. Deena, Daniel's wife, is older, fatter and has held the same job for seven years. If Daniel had stayed with Deena, now that would have been a story. This book of clichés gets worse as we discover that Deena wears a perfect size 6 but sometimes fits a 4 (What size could Jill possibly wear?), as we endure clumsy use of brand names and atmospheric descriptions that do very little to give us insight to the characters or to move this story forward. While I am made aware of the ethnic backgrounds of the main characters, it does not seem to account for Daniel's choice of adultress. I don't particularly care for stories that play on old and simplistic notions of what women are valued for. In a country where the average woman wears a size 14, Ms. Abraham was obviously writing for a small audience. I mean that in every way possible.
Rating:
Summary: An engaging, honest look at everyday life
Review: Pearl Abraham has written another book that quietly grips the reader from the first to the final page. In direct and beautifully spare prose, this story of a marriage focuses on ordinary life; somehow Abraham manages to make mundane details significantly interesting. Giving Up America is an engaging, honest look at everyday life that offers complex insights which remain with the reader long after the book has been finished. I've read and re-read this book and continue to love it.
Rating:
Summary: Pearl Abrahram, tries, but fails to evoke characters w/depth REVIEW: Pearl Abraham's earlier book, The Romance Reader, was a
Review: Pearl Abraham's earlier book, The Romance Reader, was a stunningly authentic portrayal of a hasidic family, and the ill-fated destinty of a daughter who gets trapped into a difficult marriage. In Giving Up America, Abraham revisits these themes, albeit in an updated way: the main character has left her chasidic ways behind and now works in an ad agency. She, too, is trapped in an ill-fated marriage. But Abraham fails to make the reader care very much about Daniel, the husband, and it is essentially a tired reworking of her first book. When she finally leaves her husband, it is certainly anti-climactic at best. One hopes Abraham will either invent a new focus or return to the authentic dialogue and tone of her original novel, which was a 5-star captivating book from the first page to the last. stunningly authentic portrayal of a hasidic family, and the ill-fated destinty of a daughter who gets trapped into a difficult marriage. In Giving Up America, Abraham revisits these themes, albeit in an updated works in an ad agency. She, too, is trapped in an ill-fated marriage. But Abraham fails to make the reader care very much about Daniel, the husband, and it is essentially a tired reworking of her first book. One hopes Abraham will either invent a new focus or return to the authentic dialogue and tone of her original novel, which was a 5-star captivating book from the first page to the last
Rating: 
Summary: Inspecting the foundations of marriage and faith
Review: Pearl Abraham's second book, Giving Up America, illustrates the gradual tears in moral fiber that people of every background may experience when an important relationship is tested. While Pearl Abraham's book deals with the testing of the marriage of a young Hasidic wife and her Orthodox Jewish husband by his attraction to a Southern beauty, it illuminates as well the testing of other relationships. Deena and Daniel do not enjoy the support of an involved family. Each belongs to a separate community of work friends who owe their allegiance to the individual instead of the couple. The "foreign" natures of the couple and the Southern beauty they befriend do not threaten the marriage; but the lack of family, societal and cultural support helps to make it vulnerable. As is the case for many melting pot marriages, the marriage of Deena and Daniel is tested at its very foundation. Abraham inspects every crack, every weakness, every short cut taken, every neglected aspect of maintenance in the marriage. Giving Up America made me wonder whether a couple who attend to their relationship with the same devout attention lavished on their home might have a better chance no matter how different the persons' background. In The Romance Reader, Abraham's protagonist breaks with tradition when tradition collides with her dreams. In Giving Up America, the bonds of tradition wear away long before daily friction begins to whittle away at the protagonist's dreams. Readers don't need to be Jewish to identify with the characters. They need only be willing to observe the often infinitesimal crumbling that undermines marriage and faith so painfully.
Rating:
Summary: BITTERSWEET UNDERSTANDING AND PENETRATING INSIGHT
Review: The sad dissolution of a marriage is often fodder for fiction, but seldom is this experience related with the bittersweet understanding and penetrating insight found in Giving Up America, a second novel by Pearl Abraham. As in her well received debut, The Romance Reader, Ms. Abraham's latest offering is framed by Jewish tradition, the dichotomy between Hasidic and Orthodox beliefs, the struggle to reconcile centuries old values with contemporary secular life in that quintessential street-of-dreams city - New York. Despite paternal objections, Deena has married Daniel, an Orthodox Jew. Her father, a scholarly Hasidic, opposed the marriage for Kabbalistic reasons, citing numerics to warn her that the sum of the numbers assigned to the couple's names forms the Hebrew word for "pain." "Within a mere two years," he cautioned, "you'll know it was never meant to be. But it will take more than two years to correct your error." Deena becomes a copy writer for an ad agency, employment she considers irrelevant, "The best ad was only an ad; and it was disposable." After seven years, the pair buy the home of their dreams, an older house in need of restoration. Finding satisfaction in the labor of "scraping, stripping, sanding and painting," Deena is content. But Daniel grows restless, saying he works hard enough during the week, and wants something else on weekends. He suggests inviting Jill, the new secretary at his office, and Ann, her roommate, to dinner. A former North Carolina department store model and Miss America wannabe, Jill laughs easily, bringing a heretofore unknown insouciance into their home. As the friendship between the four grows, Daniel and Deena attempt ballroom dancing lessons, even buy a Walkman in their attempts to become au courant. But this is a mix that curdles rather than blends. As their habits become more secularized, as Deena and Daniel discover more about themselves individually, they appreciate each other less. Daniel, Deena opines "fastened onto bad news like it was some kind of insurance." While Daniel sees his wife as difficult, obsessed with running. Eventually, Deena suspects that Daniel has become romantically involved with Jill. There are late night whispered phone calls, and his admission that he has kissed her. Fleeing from a situation she does not know how to resolve, Deena moves into a co-worker's Manhattan apartment. When she sees her friend's name by an entrance bell, "...suddenly Deena wanted her own name affixed on a door somewhere in this city. She'd never lived alone." While Daniel, "...frightened and exhilarated at once," pulls off his ever present yarmulke, "the constant cover a lid, and walked like that bareheaded under the blue-ink sky, under the stars, under the eyes of God." Finding her freedom intoxicating, Deena is attracted to another man, and refuses to return home. When pleas from Daniel's family are ignored, Daniel phones to say that he has spoken with the rabbi, "I'm filing for divorce. I have to....the local rabbi advises a quick divorce to minimize the sin." "A divorce," Deena thinks. "As easy as that. She wouldn't have to ask for it....The rabbi advised and Daniel agreed. He was a victim, a man sinned against by his wife, which couldn't be allowed." Ms. Abraham, the daughter of a Chassidic Orthodox rabbi, knows well the world of which she writes. Giving Up America may represent many who walk a tight rope, attempting to balance a life circumscribed by tradition with their desire to enjoy the bounty proffered by a millennium-bound secular world. Nonetheless, the author has crafted a moving story of becoming, of growing self-awareness, related in subtle, tempered tones. Ms. Abraham's prose makes no strident demands. It doesn't have to. Her suggestions are powerful.
Rating:
Summary: BITTERSWEET UNDERSTANDING AND PENETRATING INSIGHT
Review: The sad dissolution of a marriage is often fodder for fiction, but seldom is this experience related with the bittersweet understanding and penetrating insight found in Giving Up America, a second novel by Pearl Abraham. As in her well received debut, The Romance Reader, Ms. Abraham's latest offering is framed by Jewish tradition, the dichotomy between Hasidic and Orthodox beliefs, the struggle to reconcile centuries old values with contemporary secular life in that quintessential street-of-dreams city - New York. Despite paternal objections, Deena has married Daniel, an Orthodox Jew. Her father, a scholarly Hasidic, opposed the marriage for Kabbalistic reasons, citing numerics to warn her that the sum of the numbers assigned to the couple's names forms the Hebrew word for "pain." "Within a mere two years," he cautioned, "you'll know it was never meant to be. But it will take more than two years to correct your error." Deena becomes a copy writer for an ad agency, employment she considers irrelevant, "The best ad was only an ad; and it was disposable." After seven years, the pair buy the home of their dreams, an older house in need of restoration. Finding satisfaction in the labor of "scraping, stripping, sanding and painting," Deena is content. But Daniel grows restless, saying he works hard enough during the week, and wants something else on weekends. He suggests inviting Jill, the new secretary at his office, and Ann, her roommate, to dinner. A former North Carolina department store model and Miss America wannabe, Jill laughs easily, bringing a heretofore unknown insouciance into their home. As the friendship between the four grows, Daniel and Deena attempt ballroom dancing lessons, even buy a Walkman in their attempts to become au courant. But this is a mix that curdles rather than blends. As their habits become more secularized, as Deena and Daniel discover more about themselves individually, they appreciate each other less. Daniel, Deena opines "fastened onto bad news like it was some kind of insurance." While Daniel sees his wife as difficult, obsessed with running. Eventually, Deena suspects that Daniel has become romantically involved with Jill. There are late night whispered phone calls, and his admission that he has kissed her. Fleeing from a situation she does not know how to resolve, Deena moves into a co-worker's Manhattan apartment. When she sees her friend's name by an entrance bell, "...suddenly Deena wanted her own name affixed on a door somewhere in this city. She'd never lived alone." While Daniel, "...frightened and exhilarated at once," pulls off his ever present yarmulke, "the constant cover a lid, and walked like that bareheaded under the blue-ink sky, under the stars, under the eyes of God." Finding her freedom intoxicating, Deena is attracted to another man, and refuses to return home. When pleas from Daniel's family are ignored, Daniel phones to say that he has spoken with the rabbi, "I'm filing for divorce. I have to....the local rabbi advises a quick divorce to minimize the sin." "A divorce," Deena thinks. "As easy as that. She wouldn't have to ask for it....The rabbi advised and Daniel agreed. He was a victim, a man sinned against by his wife, which couldn't be allowed." Ms. Abraham, the daughter of a Chassidic Orthodox rabbi, knows well the world of which she writes. Giving Up America may represent many who walk a tight rope, attempting to balance a life circumscribed by tradition with their desire to enjoy the bounty proffered by a millennium-bound secular world. Nonetheless, the author has crafted a moving story of becoming, of growing self-awareness, related in subtle, tempered tones. Ms. Abraham's prose makes no strident demands. It doesn't have to. Her suggestions are powerful.
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